Topic: Carbs and running?

[Muse_of_Fire]

Heh. As a ballet dancer, I totally "get" fasting.

So, I'm still tweaking things. Got a little off-track over the course of the weekend and earlier this week. I tend to be a bit more relaxed about food and exercise on the weekend, and then with the meditation retreat Monday and Tuesday, that just sort of continued. 

Today I tried to get back on the wagon and had a mostly-protein breakfast (the only carbs were about 1/4 cup cantaloupe). Halfway through ballet class my muscles pretty much went on strike. I felt like I was moving through caramel, and my legs were soooooo tired! It was pretty much like my legs were barely responding. And jumps? Forget it. Should I be eating more carbs before ballet class?

When I was vigilant about meal composition and doing the two-block meals I felt great (aside from being full all the time); so I'm going to try to do that during the week, and then on the weekends do something akin to the South Beach phase one (which is pretty much all lean proteins and very low carb veggies). Alternatively, I'm considering some sort of fasting program on the weekends. I'm starting to get neurotic about the size of my butt.

Is this a totally dumb idea?

[gearsighted]

Don't make it too complicated. Stick with the mostly protein and fat, a few carbs here and there idea for a couple of weeks and give your body time to adapt to burning fat preferentially as a fuel source. At that point you can start to tweak your carb intake a bit to figure out what works best. For me it seems to be pretty low carb with pre and post workout loading depending on the effort involved. I keep it intermittent, though, as I will sometimes go 5 days low carb and only eat one or two higher-carb meals to switch things up on the weekend.